The Known Future
by Red Fiona
Summary: Father Octavian has met the Doctor before, and he knows what will happen next to the Doctor.  How to save the Doctor without endangering the universe.


Author: Red Fiona

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, the BBC does. No money is being made from this.

Genre/Ratings/Warnings: Gen fic, episode tag, PG, nothing worse than the show.

Characters: Father Octavian, the Doctor, River Song Spoilers: For everything up to the end of 'Flesh And Stone'.

Summary: Father Octavian has met the Doctor before, and he knows what will happen next to the Doctor. How to save the Doctor without endangering the universe.

* * *

Father Octavian was a young man once. He thinks young Bob would never believe that, but it is true. He was a young man when he first met the Doctor. The Doctor was older then, years of working in this field have reconciled Octavian to such things, that this thing that happened so long ago for him has yet to happen for the Doctor, even before the added complication that they have met one time in between, that he knows the Doctor cannot have experienced yet.

The Doctor runs like a coloured thread against the blank of history and there's nothing that Father Octavian can do to stop the thread being cut. Not without risking the universe and he knows the Doctor would object to that. But if there were any other way he'd take it in a flash.

Octavian was newly out of the seminary that first time. Young, foolish and scared. Scared stock still and unable to function. The madman leading them, over the head of the priest in charge of his unit, he took a few moments to reassure this scared young boy, treated him like he was as valuable and knowledgeable as the most experienced members of the squad. Of course, the Doctor couldn't remember doing something at a time that hadn't happened to him yet, but Octavian sees him do the same with Bob. There are things that Octavian cannot do, because he is the commanding officer, and he regrets those things, and is pleased the Doctor is here to do them for him.

Father Octavian is less pleased with their method of bringing the Doctor here, all too flash and showy, and indisputably her. He makes no attempt to hide his dislike of Professor Song, for what she's already done in his timeline and what she will do in the Doctor's future. The news blips tell all kinds of stories about River Song, most of them somewhat true, but they don't mention that she callously locked the Doctor in the room where he died.

At the trial, there was a lot of bramfoodle about how Professor Song was the 'smiling assassin', the killer who didn't cry, despite her protestations of innocence, and Octavian knows it's so much nonsense. Some people just don't cry, not in public, and he's heard her shed enough tears when she thinks no-one can hear her. Not that it matters, she can feel all the regret she wants, he can only wish her more.

She locked the clerics out, stopped them from rescuing the Doctor, keeping radio contact up all the time. She'd fixed it so that they couldn't communicate with the Doctor, but they could hear everything, and she kept up such a steady stream of chatter, and data about the problem that the Doctor was fixing for them, never mentioning the thing that was going to kill him. So cheerful she was.

The clerics are the chosen military, picked because they have no family ties, and because they're trained not to hate, for their every action to be love and to be fearless, for their reward is in the hereafter. They're supposed to be immune to base impulses, like the need for revenge, and Octavian knows that he has Hail Mary's and decades waiting for him when he debriefs and confesses himself after this mission, because he wants her to suffer.

Octavian feels terrible about not being able to tell the Doctor about what will happen to him, feels ashamed every time the man looks at him, because this is no way to repay a kindness. He knows his response to his feelings is a bad one, it makes him stiff and brusque, and he fears that the Doctor dislikes him very much right now. It's a judgement he'd do anything to change, but he has no way of doing so without the future of everything being put in danger, and he's not selfish enough to do that.

It doesn't stop him from dropping hints that Doctor Song is not to be entirely trusted. He thinks he can get away with that, because the Doctor is not a fool, and Father Octavian would be astounded if he didn't already know that, but it can't hurt to act as a reminder. It's the least he can do, and he knows that it's not enough. He can't put too much effort into coming up with another way to get the vital information to the Doctor, because his mind is taken up with defeating the Angels. However, once he completes this mission, he'll give his mind over to it entirely. There has to be a way of warning the Doctor.

* * *

End Notes: Of course, there's undoubtedly something about what happened that Father Octavian doesn't know, which explains what River did and why, but such are the perils of the unknowing narrator.


End file.
